Skeptic Tank Text Archive File

Front Page: spring 1992
THERE'S A LIVING IN IT
A subscriber in Florida recently raised an interesting question: "Why
can't these preachers simply admit that the Bible is not the inerrant book it
has been proclaimed to be and stop lying to their congregations?" The ques-
tion was asked in the context of comments the reader was making about the
thoroughness of TSR's exposure of flaws in the inerrancy doctrine.
I have to admit that I have often wondered the same thing. Ten issues
of The Skeptical Review have now been published containing over 30 major
articles and several short ones that focused on discrepancies in the Bible
text. In every issue, we have offered inerrancy defenders the opportunity
to rebut our lead articles, but twice we had to publish without rebuttals
because we could find no one willing to argue the inerrancy view on the
subject we were featuring. We have been especially persistent in challenging
Wayne Jackson, the editor of Christian Courier, to defend his inerrancy
views, because he is especially vocal in his articles about "the uncanny relia-
blility" of the Bible in even "the smallest details" ("The Bible Passes the
Test," Biblical Notes, Nov./Dec. 1991, p. 9). Jackson, like many of his
inerrancy colleagues, has repeatedly declined our offers of space to defend
his claim that the Bible is inerrant. We find it hard to understand why an
inerrancy believer who writes as frequently on the subject as Jackson does
would refuse an offer of free publishing space to write on the subject if he
sincerely believes in what he preaches.
So why do vociferous inerrancy spokesmen like Wayne Jackson and
Gleason Archer refuse to defend publicly what they write books and publish
papers to teach in one-sided formats? Our reader in Florida probably has the
answer. "I think that the Bible is simply their meal ticket," he went on to
say.
For years, I have resisted this conclusion. As a former fundamentalist
preacher who sincerely believed that the Bible was the verbally inspired,
inerrant word of God, I have wanted to believe that those who profess belief
in the inerrancy doctrine are just as sincere as I was, but the more I write
on the subject and debate it with fundamentalist preachers, the more difficult
it is to give them the benefit of doubt. Most will not even debate the issue,
and those who will do nothing but evade arguments and parrot worn-out, far-
fetched how-it-could-have-been scenarios that only the naively credulous
could possibly believe.
So could it just be that our reader in Florida is right? The Bible is
simply a meal ticket to many of the fundamentalist preachers who proclaim it
from their pulpits but won't defend it in public debate with informed oppo-
nents.
If this is so, it would be entirely consistent with Darwinism, which,
whether fundamentalists like it or not, offers a far more likely explanation
for the various life forms than does the Genesis story of creation. In na-
ture, if there is a living to be made in some way, no matter how unusual it
might be, there will always be some creature that will exploit it. This,
rather than creation, probably accounts for the millions of cases of special
adaptation that we see in nature. There was a living to be made in this way
and that way and millions of other ways, so through eons and eons of natural
selection have evolved the various species that are "good" at what they do to
make a living. Many species are so good at what they do that some people
see them as marvelous evidence of creation, but it isn't that at all. There
was a living to be made in all these ways, so the creatures that successfully
exploited them survived and became specialized. Those that didn't didn't.
My point is not to (See LIVING, p. 16) defend the theory of evolu-
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tion, but to give our fundamentalist readers something to think about. As
long as there is a living to be made at something, there will always be enter-
prising life forms that will exploit it. Is it possible that this fact of nature
is at work in the religious affairs of men? One would have to deny the
obvious to say that it isn't. We have seen too many Jim Bakkers and Jimmy
Swaggarts exploiting the gullibility of people to deny that some preachers are
preaching only because they have found it an easy way to make a good liv-
ing.
"Oh, but that is Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart," some will say. "My
preacher would never do anything that dishonest." Well, don't be too sure of
it. If the public suddenly stopped believing in Bible inerrancy, what would
that do to the thousands of fundamentalist preachers in the land? It would
put them all out of work, so don't tell me that they don't have a vested
interest in the outcome of the inerrancy controversy. They have a lot of
pressure on them to say that they believe in Bible inerrancy even if they
don't.
When I debate the inerrancy doctrine with fundamentalist preachers, I
have no economic pressure at all on me. If one of them should prove beyond
question, so that no rational person in the world could deny it, that the
Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God, all I would do is ac-
knowledge that I was wrong (which wouldn't be the first time I've admitted I
was wrong), return home, go back to my job, and draw my salary as an
English teacher. I would have to disband Skepticism, Inc., of course, but
that would cause me no economic loss. It is a nonprofit organization with a
decided emphasis on the nonprofit.
On the other hand, if I should prove beyond question, so that no
rational person in the world could deny it, that the Bible is not the verbally
inspired, inerrant word of God, what would that do to my opponents? They
couldn't return to their jobs, because there would be no one for them to
preach to, no one to put money into the collection baskets to keep their little
empires going. Their livelihood would be gone with the public's loss of faith
in Bible inerrancy.
If you think that they don't know that, you must be very načve.
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